Monday, March 31, 2008

Who is A. Sivasubramaniam ? Prior to yesterdays news, he was just another Malaysian, to many. Although he has been recently elected the assemblyman for Buntong - not many knew him, and not many cared.

People were only excited at the opposition coalition forming the new government in Perak.

This is A. Sivasubramaniam, the DAP assemblyman for Buntong, who resigned from the DAP, then retracted his resignation yesterday, as reported in the Star.

The reasons he gave for his resignation was that he had lost confidence in the Perak DAP, as he claimed has failed to fulfill its promise to appoint two Indian state executive council members.

By his action, A. Sivasubramaniam appears to imply that:

1. he is special and that the DAP won the Buntong state seat because of his special merits. In other words, no other candidate from the DAP could have stood in Buntong and won.

2. he could have won even if he stood as an independant candidate in Buntong.

3. the Chinese and Malays who voted for him are not important.

4. that the other elected representative in the opposition coalition are incompetent to protect the rights of the Indian community. In other words, only Indians can protect the rights of Indians.

5. without the two Indian state executive council members, Indian rights in Perak are not protected.

Note that the voters in Buntong (whilst predominantly Indians)had previously voted for MCA's Datuk Yik Pooi Hong (a Chinese) for three terms. This is the first time A. Sivasubramaniam is given the opportunity by the voters in Buntong, to represent them as an assemblyman, because they are simply fed-up with the BN.

From this point of view, it appears that the Buntong voters don't really care about the race of the candidates they voted for; they voted for the party. This time, having been fed-up with the BN, Buntong voters would have voted for any candidate selected by the opposition coalition, be it a Chinese, Malay or an Indian - and the lucky candidate selected by the opposition just happened to be A. Sivasubramaniam. This appears to be his secret of success in Buntong.

Why is A. Sivasubramaniam making race an issue when the people who voted for him are not particularly concerned about that ? This is a mystery only A. Sivasubramaniam himself can reveal, with presumably some guided inspiration.

Maybe in future, should A. Sivasubramaniam prove his significance to Malaysians (given the opportunity he now has in Buntong), he will then become known for the right merits and the current perception of him attempting "the katak" - the frog, will thus stand corrected. In politics, perception is everything. And Malaysians "tidak mudah lupa" - never forget easily.